6:00 WAKE, MORNING CHORES, BREAKFAST
8:00-9:00 MORNING FAMILY BLOCK – “CIRCLE TIME” ::
(Friday mornings we will go to Mass & Benediction)
- Morning Prayer
- Saint of the Day Story from Saints – A Year in Faith and Art
- Saint magnet placed on Calendar
- Review Days of the week, months, seasons and weather.
- Seasonal Songs and/or Poems.
- Seasonal Bible Story (Advent/Jesse Tree; Lent/Jesus Tree; Easter/Garden of the Good Shepherd)
- Religion Lesson using one of the following: Baltimore Catechism #2 Lesson/Drill; Corresponding Angel Food Story; Catholic Mosaic or other Liturgical Year Picture Book; Religious Reading / Devotional Story
- Liturgical Hymn
9:00-10:00 MORNING LESSON BLOCK #1 ::
- The Older Boys (with Mom) : Right Start Math followed by Math Games
- The Girls & Baby : Signing Time; Puzzles / Learning Toys; Workbooks
10:00-11:30 MORNING LESSON BLOCK #2 ::
- The Older Boys : Language Arts (Independent Work) – Handwriting FYC; Spelling FYC; English FYC; MCP Phonics.
- The Girls (with Mom) : Right Start Math (30 min); Alphabet Path (including Handwriting Without Tears and Phonics Lesson) –
Monday: Presentation; Letter Formation using Modeling Beeswax and HWT Wooden Pieces; Flower Fairy Coloring Page
Tuesday : Science themed Picture Books and Coloring Page and/or Worksheet
Wednesday: Picture Study (ABC Museum)
Thursday: Saint Story (Alphabet of Saints and various picture books) and Craft
Friday: Serendipi-Tea Time Recipe
11:30-1:00 LUNCH BREAK ::
- Pre-Lunch Chores while Mom prepares lunch
- Angelus at Noon
- Lunch
- Outside Recess
1:00-2:00 AFTERNOON LEARNING BLOCK #1 ::
(Read Alouds and Independent Reading)
- Monday – Along the American History Path / Geography (allow two-three weeks per stop)
- Tuesday – Exploring Creation with Astronomy
- Wednesday – RC History Volume 2 (one unit per month)
- Thursday – RC History Volume 2
- Friday – Prima Latina Lesson
2:00-3:00 AFTERNOON LEARNING BLOCK #2 ::
(Projects and Crafts)
- Monday –American History/Geography Projects and Assignments
- Tuesday – Science Lapbook and/or Crafts/Experiments
- Wednesday – World History Creative Writing and/or Hands on Project Assignments
- Thursday – Timeline Work
- Friday – Liturgical Year Craft / Year of the Priests Lapbook
3:00 :: TEATIME AND OUTDOOR PLAYTIME
5:00 :: CLEAN-UP HOME AND PRE-DINNER CHORES
6:00 :: DINNER
8:00 :: ROSARY AND BEDTIME FOR THE GIRLS
Jessica, thank you for posting this schedule! It's so helpful to me as a first year homeschooler to see the details of how you fit the curriculum in and when you do one on one time vs independent work. I love the morning circle time and it's spiritual bent…what a marvelous way to start the school day!
Jessica, if I may, what time do you and the kids get up? Do you get up before they do? Do you do morning chores before breakfast? And when do you do school prep? The night before or weekly? Do you commit it to paper? Sorry to pepper you with all these questions… 🙂 Thank you for sharing all that you do! It's trite, I know, but you are a real inspiration! God bless!
Tienne ~ I was greatly inspired by a couple other moms who posted their schedules and so far (this is just our second day back to school) it is going well!
J.C. ~ I am dragging myself out of bed at 6am. This is HARD for me. I am a night person and can easily stay up till 12 or 1 am. I am going to try my best to go to bed at 10 (haven't yet accomplished that — last night it was 11).
My children use to sleep till 7:30-8:00, but now I am waking them up at 7am.
This week I've been keeping breakfast simple and doing chores before hand. I start the wash when I get up and can then start the second load before breakfast. I have also been trying to have the house pretty clean before bed, which really makes a difference in the morning.
I try to spend a little time each weekend planning (ordering books etc for upcoming weeks) and then finalizing those plans the night before. Sometimes I am not totally ready though and frustrated with having to make copies (today it was Math pages) or print things off the computer. I am still working on being a little more organized in this area. In the past I just sort of did whatever, and whenever, and there was so much we DID NOT get to each day due to me not being organized…
Does that make sense??
WOW that is a busy day.
Awesome Jessica!!! I have to start working on mine now!
Meg ~ There is lots of "extra" room built in, so it really isn't that bad! =)
Jessica, Thank you for sharing all of your ideas. They are inspirational and I have learned so much. I was just thinking about waking the kids up earlier and getting the day started.
Jessica
re your saint magnet, do you make it, if so how?
Erin ~ I posted about our Saint Magnets here.
I made the magnets by attaching the stickers from this Sticker Album to strips of magnets that were sticky on one side a few years ago, and have never had any problem with the stickers peeling.
The stickers are based on the Traditional Liturgical Calendar though, just so you know. I suppose, with a little research and work, you could rearrange the dates to follow the New Calendar if you wanted to. We seem to follow both in our home! =)
This helps me so much! We're in week 3, but I can see that we need some tweaking. This is a great guideline. Thanks!
For the Alphabet Path, can you list (or shoot me an email) about what science themed books you are using? Mary-Grace and I are on letter B, and I'm very curious about that.
Do you ever lose energy, i.e. 3rd trimester?! Because I had your kind of energy until a couple of weeks ago when I hit 6 full months. Then it vanished!
Aimee ~
I am sure I will continue to tweak this as well, although today went GREAT! (Yesterday I worked with the girls first, then the boys, but decided to switch that to the boys first — as I listed in this schedule — and that worked SO much better.
In regards to the Alphabet Path, I am just getting books from the library (or our bookshelves) from Elizabeth's "Picture Book Science" category for each letter. (This week it is all about Apples, next week Birds, etc.) I am also trying to find a coloring page or worksheet online to go along with them, since the girls need (or rather want!) something to keep them busy while I am working with the boys.
As for energy, yes, the third trimester is especially hard for me. With about half of my pregnancies the 3rd trimester has included premature labor and sometimes bedrest. I also tend to have contractions almost daily for the last couple months and they really wear me out. I am trying to be prepared, just in case…
Jessica,
Make sure you get enough rest. This past spring when I was pregnant with Andrew I was trying to get up at 6 a.m. every day and ended up so tired (of course I wasn't going to bed at a reasonable time) and worn out that I got a TERRIBLE flu that had me in bed for 10 days – it was so bad the doctors thought it had affected my heart and I ended up with all of these appointments to make sure my heart was still ok. Luckily it was but I am convinced that it was my lack of enough rest on top of pregnancy that made me so ill. So make sure you get enough sleep!!!
Thanks Shalon! I am going to make sure I start getting to bed at a decent hour, and perhaps even taking a little nap when we are done in the afternoon. =)
I have been looking a bit at Along the Alphabet Path myself, thinking about Kindergarten for my oldest next year… maybe I'm slow (or just haven't spent enough time looking at it), but I can't quite figure it all out. I found the stories, and I can see that they go along with the Alphabet of Saints book, but otherwise, I am lost. I'll be interested to see how you do it with your girls this year!
I love the magnet saints idea, BTW… we have a magnetic calendar too and that sounds perfect! I hadn't thought about how the Traditional and New calendars differ regarding saints and feast days and such… so it doesn't really matter if you observe some from both calendars? I'd not really thought about this until I read the comments here…
Thanks for sharing your schedule – I love to see how other people organize their days!
We are going to homeschool too so it is really neat to see what other families are doing in such concrete terms. You are such a wonderful inspiration. Praise God for you! Bless your efforts! I noticed the Prima Latina lesson in your layout and was so excited. I had our library order that and it has been really clear and I love that we get to learn Latin that is applicable to our faith. We already almost know one of the prayers. Awesome!!
I love to see your schedule. I will have to post ours too. Ours is a bit different we have just two school age (5 and 3) and the school day ends about 1:30 starting at 10:30!!
Jessica, I'm very admiring what you make with your children you must be very patient.
I'm a teacher but yet I'm at home to keep my children, in France homeschooling is not the majority so my children are going to school I don't know if I can support to make school at home.
Big Kisses from France and a good school year to you and your children. God bless you all.
Jessica,
Your schedule is a lot like mine, but I find that the afternoons get "lost" due to having to go to drs or something else that comes up. It's taking us 3 years to get through RC History because I schedule it in the afternoons. How do you handle leaving the house with your schedule? Do you try to do your outings in the afternoons as well? God bless!
Fun to see what you and the kiddos do each day! What a fun school!
Fun to see what you and the kiddos do each day! What a fun school!
Jessica,
Would you mind sharing with us how you dictate chores/jobs in your home throughout the day. I see from your schedule you have them broken up into morning/afternoon/evening. I would also love if you would share what chores/jobs you assign to each child based on their age & ability. God bless your motherhood!
This is great! I'm inspired and ppreciate being able to "peek in" at a more experienced homeschooler's day-in-the-life!
Quick question – any recommendations for a good Children's Bible for a toddler/young child? The one I bought I'm not very impressed with ("The Big Picture Story Bible" by David Helm) as it completely doesn't even mention the Annunciation, the Last Supper, etc. I'm hoping to make it to our local Catholic bookstore in the next few weeks, but if you have a good one, I'd love to hear it!
Best,
Sarah
Erin ~ I would suggest visiting Tracy at Pinewood Castle to see how she implemented the Alphabet Path in her home. I found her posts very inspiring, though I am sure our own Alphabet Path will be much less simpler, since I have other plans for my boys. Here is a link to all of her Alphabet Path Posts.
My brother-in-laws are priest with the FSSP which follows the Traditional Calendar. So, even though we only have the Norvus Ordo Mass in our area, I want my children to be familiar with both. Here is an interesting thread on 4Real with more information.
The day planner I use is made by Tan and contains both calendars which I LOVE!! I also love that my mother-in-law sends hubby and I each a copy for Christmas every year!! =)
Glin ~ Now that we have started school I am hoping to schedule most of my appointments after 3pm or on Fridays. Hopefully this will work… We live quite a ways from town, so any trips out really take a chunk out of the day. Also, History is my boys favorite subject so if they need to do some of their reading and assignments at night they will be more than willing to. I guess we will see how it goes!
Joalyce ~ I am still trying to finalize chore charts for my children, and will try to post a little about that sometime… Over the summer I had a weekly chart hanging on the fridge with what each child was suppose to do — they had a main weekly chore as well as a different chore each day of the week, which seemed to work really well.
Sarah ~ I really like the New Catholic Picture Bible by Father Lovasik. I am working on updating some of our books in the side bar and that is one I just added. =) Hope that helps!
Erin ~ That should have read "much simpler" not "much less simpler"… lol!
Thanks for the links – you are awesome! The planner looks wonderful… adding it to my Amazon wish list now! I noticed that it is published by the same company that did the Treasure Box books for children, which I have been wanting… I have heard a few people recommending them.
My brain just skipped right over the "much less simpler" – it made sense to me anyways! 😉
Thanks for the post on your daily schedule! It seems along the lines of what I had in my mind for our homeschool. We also live a ways out of town, so it seems any appointments, errands blow 1/2 the day. We try to take along work in the car though, listen to CD's, etc, so we don't waste our time. I am curious how you handle the interruptions from little ones during one on one time?
Jessica, thank you for posting your schedule. It is so helpful to see how other moms schedule their day. I do have a question about the blocks of time, particularly when the children are working on their own. If you have an hour scheduled and they finish everything you have assigned before the hour is up, what do you have them do with the remaining time?
Thanks!
Hi Jessica, I was wondering how it's going doing one subject each day during the afternoons? I read your post about setting goals after the conference back in 2008 and wanting to do one thing each day. I've been feeling much the same way about not spending enough time on something, but I was wondering if one day each week was enough. What do the girls do while you work with the boys in the afternoon? Thanks in advance!
~Kelly